Lego table v2

Back in January I made my first lego table for my twins 3rd birthday. Our table was built using 8 lego sheets with a “bin” built into the middle to hold our legos for easy access on all sides.

My wife’s grandmother loved it and suggested to her daughter (my wife’s aunt) who is a first grade school teacher that I should make one for her classroom. I sent my wife’s aunt pictures of our lego table as well as some information about the size of the lego sheets that cover the top. The sheets are roughly 10″ x 10″ square so any table would need to be built in increments of 10″. She took that information back to her classroom and measured the available space and came up with a requested size of 20″ x 30″.

I put together 3 different design options for her in sketchup:

The first option was a table similar to ours in that it had a ‘trough’ set into the middle where legos could be stored and accessed from all sides.

The second option was the same as option 1 with the exception that the ‘trough’ was off to the side instead of in the middle I wasn’t sure if the table was going to be sitting up against a wall in her classroom or not. If it was, my thinking was that the trough on the front would bring the Legos closer to where the kids would be standing/kneeling to play.

The third option stayed closer to the original 20×30″ dimensions by integrating slots into the front to hang two Ikea “Trofast” storage bins.

She preferred option #3 as it was closer to the dimensions of the space she had available and the storage bins would allow for storing considerably more Legos than the trough design of options 1 and 2. Additionally Ikea sells a larger/deeper “Trofast” storage bin that has the same width/length but is taller. Those bins will also fit into this design should she need to increase the storage capacity at any time.

She also requested that the table be painted white to “brighten up” the classroom.

The table was constructed out of 1×6″ pine boards for the outside frame with a 3/4″ sheet of plywood acting as the top of the table. The legs are ~16″ long and roughly 2 3/8″ square. I cut a taper into the legs similar to my recent shoe bench project and installed adjustable screw in feet to the bottom to allow for levelling. The table was primed and painted white as requested and the lego sheets were then epoxied onto the plywood surface.